It’s a beautiful summer day. Dad and his 10-week-old son Ryan are
relaxing on a blanket outside. Dad leans over Ryan and smiles and
coos happily as his baby looks up at him. Baby smiles and dad is
thrilled. Suddenly, the family dog bounds into this perfect world,
disturbing the moment and knocking over a glass of lemonade. Not
pleased, dad immediately turns to the dog, shouts at him, and
shoos him away. As he turns back to his baby, an expression of
anger is still on his face. Ryan looks at his dad’s face and
begins to cry. Dad immediately senses his baby’s reaction. He
scoops him up, cuddles him and soothes away his tears.
What happened there? Was Ryan’s smile a real expression of
contentment or was he simply mirroring his dad’s facial
expression? Was Ryan’s response to his dad’s anger a real
emotional reaction? What do babies feel and when do they start to
feel it?
Emotions start early.
Infants are emotional beings right from birth. In fact, emotions are
biologically based, are built into children’s brains, and help them connect
to caregivers. (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2004)
Human beings are truly born to feel!
But when do children begin to feel emotions and what do they feel? Right
from birth infants experience several basic or primary emotions. During the
first six months of life, as the infant makes cognitive gains, these basic
emotions develop into more sophisticated emotions. Thus, over time, a young
child’s repertoire of emotions continues to grows. (Lewis, 2000)
The primary emotions and their development during the first six months of
life are mapped like this:
As can be seen in the chart, at birth there are three basic emotions that
infants experience. But over the course of the first six months of life,
infants begin to experience more complex emotions. And with each passing
year their emotional repertoire grows. For instance, at ages two to three
years old children begin to experience embarrassment, pride, shame and
guilt. (Lewis, 2000)
How do scientists
study infant emotions?
Infants can’t talk about their emotions—at least not yet! So to find
out about young children’s emotions, researchers created experiments
that examined how babies respond to the emotional expressions they see
and hear in other people. Would the babies reactto another person’s
emotions? Would they copy the emotions they saw?
Just 10 weeks old
In one experiment, researchers wanted to know if 10-week-old babies
would respond to their mothers’ expressions of happiness, sadness and
anger with emotional expressions of their own. When the babies were
calm, their mothers would show them an emotion, such as happiness, and
the babies’ responses were recorded on videotape.
The babies responded differently to each of the three expressions their
mothers presented, showing that they could tell the difference between
happiness, sadness and anger. Also, the babies’ reactions changed as
their mothers repeated their expressions, showing that they weren’t
simply copying the emotions that they saw.
For instance, the babies first reflected back their mothers’ joyful
expressions, but as the mothers repeated this expression, the babies’
reactions changed to interest and excitement. At just 10 weeks old
infants can tell the difference in emotions displayed by another human
being. (Haviland & Lelwica, 1987)
Helpful Parenting Tips
Infant
expressions reflect their inner emotions or feelings. Humans are
born to feel and read other people’s emotions. Infants watch and
respond to our emotions. Spend lots of time interacting with your
baby, learning what she is trying to tell you about how she feels.
Smile, laugh, and play facial games.
Be aware that your angry or sad face will affect how your baby
reacts.
Take your baby’s emotional expressions seriously and respond to
them.
Watch and learn how your baby’s emotions develop over time.
You and your baby are discovering more about each other every day
and it’s an exciting adventure. Most of all, have fun… it will show
on your face.
References:
Haviland, J. M., &
Lelwica, M. (1987). The induced affect response: 10-week-old
infants'
responses to three emotion expressions. Developmental Psychology,
23(1), 97-104.
Lewis, M. (2000).
The emergence of human emotions. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones
(Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd ed., pp. 265-280). New York:
Guilford Press.
National
Scientific Council on the Developing Child. (2004). Children’s
emotional development is built into the architecture of their
brain: Working Paper No. 2. Retrieved October 4, 2005 from http://www.developingchild.net/reports.shtml.
Infant
expressions reflect their inner emotions or feelings. Humans are
born to feel and read other people’s emotions. Infants watch and
respond to our emotions. Spend lots of time interacting with your
baby, learning what she is trying to tell you about how she feels.
